EF1 tornado, Evers to Gila, Illinois, April 2, 2025

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mph

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. EF5over 200 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

EF1

Date

April 2, 2025

Touchdown

6:23 PM CDT (23:23 UTC)

Lifted

6:29 PM CDT (23:29 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

8.3 miles (13.4 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Effingham and Jasper counties

Touchdown point

39.103, -88.436

Lift-off point

39.169, -88.308

Record number

2504021723-01

81 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ILX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• Porch damaged. Chicken coop on its side. Out building destroyed. From Nathan Ward...spotter.
• two pine trees snapped. Roughly 2 ESE of Toledo.
• Plane with overhead door on top, the door broke the windshield.
• Shed rolled. Not sure if new damage

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

An area of low pressure tracked from southeastern Nebraska during the morning of April 2nd to western Wisconsin by evening, triggering two rounds of convection across central Illinois.||Round 1 occurred during the morning when a line of thunderstorms along the trailing cold front pushed into the Illinois River Valley. These storms were generally sub-severe, but one cell produced a downburst with estimated winds in excess of 70 mph across parts of Logan County, downing a few trees, tearing the roof off a business, and flipping 3 semis in and near Lincoln.||Round 2 materialized by early afternoon as storms re-developed along an outflow boundary from the morning convection along the I-55 corridor. These storms tapped into a moderately unstable and highly sheared environment and quickly became severe. Six tornadoes touched down...including a long-track EF-2 tornado that remained on the ground for nearly 45 miles and impacted parts of Cumberland, Clark, and Edgar counties before crossing into Vigo County, Indiana. Numerous reports of wind damage and large hail were received as the storms congealed into a line and pushed eastward across I-57 by early evening. The largest reported hail stones were the size of eggs (2 in diameter) in Springfield in Sangamon County and just northwest of Latham in southern Logan County.

A tornado touched down just south of the intersection of North 2000th Street and East 1300th Avenue at 6:23 PM CDT. The tornado damaged the roof and siding of a home upon its initial touchdown, then tracked northeastward and reached its peak intensity near the intersection of North 2300th Street and East 1500th Avenue where it bent 5 power poles. It then crossed into Jasper County north of the intersection of North 2400th Street and East 1600th Avenue where it threw grain bins across the road at 6:27 PM CDT.

This tornado crossed from Effingham County into northwest Jasper County north of the intersection of North 2400th Street and East 1600th Avenue at 6:27 PM CDT. The tornado continued northeastward and eventually dissipated in a wooded area northwest of the intersection of North 375th Street and East 2160th Avenue where it damaged several trees at 6:29 PM CDT.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

44 minutes of warning. NWS ILX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:39 UTC, 44 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:18 UTC and running to 00:46 UTC.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:57 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

Effingham (1H2), 16 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Evansville,IN radar (KVWX), 112 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:20 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2025 tornado in IllinoisEvery tornado in Illinois since 1950Warnings in force in Illinois nowThe forecast where you are

87 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 88 of them

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.